There are many things one might say about the Vice President’s speech at Tel Aviv University, but one of his remarks jumped out at me as being so obviously false that I have to wonder why he said it. Biden said:

Looming over all our efforts in this region is the shadow cast by Iran, home of a — home of a great civilization and proud people who suffer from a leadership that flouts the will of the world [bold mine-DL] by pursuing nuclear weapons and supporting terrorism and terrorists.

Actually, it doesn’t flout “the will of the world.” Several major powers and most rising powers and emerging-market countries are not trying to impose their will on Iran. Their will is not being flouted. Much of the rest of the world does not share our genuinely irrational fear of Iran’s nuclear program. Rising powers such as Brazil and Turkey simply don’t believe the claim that Iran must be working on a nuclear weapons program, and they take their positions on sanctions accordingly. India might formally oppose Iranian acquisition of a bomb, but in reality India would not mind having an even stronger strategic counterweight against Pakistan. Russia and China not only don’t care whether Iran acquires nuclear weapons, but they may also find such a development useful. The “will of the world” is not united, and there is no single position of the “international community” to which Biden can appeal. Much of the rest of the world is probably quite tied of having American demands and American complaints identified with “the will of the world.”

Biden said a short time later:

You have to acknowledge that today Iran is more isolated with its own people as well as the region and in the world than it has been at any time in the past two decades.

No, we don’t have to acknowledge any such thing. First of all, the second claim is obviously untrue, and the first one may be as well. All of the nations I just mentioned are increasing their ties to Iran. Much of this involves Iran’s energy sector, but it is not limited to that. Iran is more diplomatically and economically tied into the developing world than ever. As Gvosdev was explaining just yesterday, many of the world’s largest democracies are uninterested in following Washington’s lead on Iran:

Efforts to get a new stronger sanctions resolution are running against not only the expected resistance from China, but reluctance on the part of Turkey to endorse this approach. Meanwhile, India’s private sector shows no real enthusiasm for cutting off commercial relations with Tehran. Instead of showcasing the determination of the “international community,” the Obama administration is facing the reality of a divided world. Even if successful French diplomacy with Russia ameliorates Moscow’s opposition, the current drive for sanctions looks largely like a “Euro-Atlantic” initiative—and if so, it loses a good deal of its punch if half the world chooses to ignore them.

I doubt that Biden and the rest of the administration are so clueless that they don’t know all of this, so why the charade? It’s not clear what purpose Biden’s misinformation is supposed to serve. His Israeli audience can see the opposition to Iran sanctions building all over the world just as well as anyone else. An Israeli audience is probably the one least likely to believe such claims. The many other nations whose opposition he is ignoring might find Biden’s claims either mildly amusing or insulting depending on the government. Pretending that there is broad international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program is not going to create agreement where none exists. Back home the administration’s hawkish critics can easily ridicule the administration as being out of touch or out of its depth. Now that Biden has proclaimed the obvious falsehood that Iran is more isolated than ever, administration credibility needlessly takes another hit, which further undermines hopes of persuading any states that might have been on the fence to align with Washington’s position. Contra Biden, “the world” is not about to be mobilized to impose “meaningful sanctions.”

As I have said before, the problem is not the means the administration is employing to pursue Iran sanctions. The problem is the substance and goal of the policy. The goal of eliminating or severely limiting Iran’s nuclear program cannot be reached. Most major governments around the world don’t even regard it as a desirable goal to pursue, which guarantees that it cannot be reached.